Bulldogs Come in Second at Fairfield Invitational

NEW
HAVEN, Conn. – The Yale Women’s Cross Country
team traveled to Fairfield, Conn. Saturday morning for the
Fairfield Invitational. The Bulldogs came in a strong second place
finish with 34 points, only six points behind the first-place
University of Connecticut team, which finished the meet with 28
points.

The competition
included six other teams from the region: UConn, University of New
Haven, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, University of
Bridgeport and Siena. UConn and UMass posed the biggest threat to
the Bulldogs, but Yale finished 28 points ahead of third-place
UMass.

“It was a
good race for seeing where people are,” senior captain
Stephany Reaves said. “We were happy. It was
definitely a race to just get our feet wet, to get used to racing
5k again. It was a typical fall day: overcast and breezy, but the
rain held off.”

Yale’s top
finisher was senior Stephanie Pearl, who finished
third in 18:57, close on the heels of UConn freshman Megan
Jacoby. Last year Pearl won this meet with a
time of 18:49 – the exact same time of the first-place runner
this year.

Not far behind
Pearl, with a time of 19:08, was freshman Elizabeth
Marvin. This third-place finish is a great first
performance for the freshman, and we will be looking to her for
more finishes among Yale’s top-five throughout the season.

Sophomore
Anne Lovelace was the next Bulldog to cross the
finish line, in sixth place (19:19), and was followed immediately
by Reaves (19:20). Rounding out the five scoring runners was
sophomore Jennifer Downing in 15th
place (19:35). The spread between Yale’s top five was only 38
seconds, which is good; the closer together the runners are, the
better.

Although only the
positions of the top five runners make up the team’s score,
the sixth and seventh finishers for the team are essential: their
places are taken into account in determining the scores of other
teams. A good showing by these non-scoring runners can push up the
other teams’ scores. Yale’s sixth and seventh at
Fairfield were both freshmen: Nihal Kayali, who
finished behind Downing in 16th pace in 19:38, and
Victoria Flannery, who finished in 20:12.

Though they
couldn’t directly contribute to the team’s standing,
fellow freshmen Caitlin Hudson and
Jennifer Donnelly finished close behind, in 20:13
and 20:19, respectively. The spread between these last three
freshmen was only seven seconds – a sign that they could be a
force to be reckoned with as they all improve together.

Mark Young,
the Mark T. Young ’68 Director of Cross Country and Track and
Field said: “We are quite satisfied with our result today as
it is our first meet. The final score was close, and we had four
runners in before UConn, and our fifth and sixth were just behind
their number five. Of particular note was that four of our top
eight were freshmen and two more were sophomores. A good job by the
youth movement and the senior Stephanie(y)s. We have much improving
to do, but what we saw today gives us good reason to think that
that can happen.”

The Bulldogs will
split up next weekend: many will travel to New York City to compete
in the Iona Invitational at the famed Van Cortlandt Park, while
some will stay nearby to compete in the Quinnipiac Invitational in
Hamden, Conn.